


The country that I know

by Quillori



Category: An Hini A Garan - Denez Prigent (Song)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 03:56:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18865213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillori/pseuds/Quillori





	The country that I know

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ruis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruis/gifts).



I had a mother, and a sister, and a father; I think I had cousins, too. Presumably there must have been an aunt, or an uncle, otherwise how should I have come by cousins? But it is little matter, for I remember none of them, or if I do, it is only vaguely, like dreams or figures from some story. Even my father, who was the last to go - I remember the sound of his laughter (he was a hearty man, I think, given to jokes and keen on the company of friends), and I remember him tousling my hair, teaching me to count crows, sitting me down on a stone by the road where we’d been walking (it was a sunny day and the rock was hot; I remember there was a little lizard on it, delicate purple throat moving with every breath, until I got too near and startled it) - as I said, he sat me down and told me, serious and quiet, that I would have a new mother now and must love her as I did the old. I knew it was important, because he wasn’t laughing, so I looked very grave and thoughtful, and agreed I would, but in fact I couldn’t remember my mother at all and had no notion of having loved her. I don’t know why he thought I would, for she died when I was very young. 

It was the same with my sister - the sickness came and took her before she could even speak. I remember her smile, and the way her hands reached out to pull my hair, but I don’t really remember _her_ , not an individual to love or even to grieve. That was a different sickness, of course, the first and terrible one, not the one that came later, although it is the later one I remember. My sister, my cousins, their parents, they died along with everyone else, and then, when it was over, and a year had passed, and another, and another, we thought ourselves safe, and gave thanks, and ceased to fear. 

I think I remember my father’s funeral. I do remember when he started to cough, and thought nothing of it. I remember, too, coming home and finding I was to sleep on the floor, like a servant. 

I had a mother - a stepmother - and a life that was not too bad. There was no soft bed for me, and no new clothes, and I worked all day at any task that needed doing, but so do many other children, and we do not say there are unhappy, or hard done by, or unloved. The difference was only that it had been different for me before, while my father lived. But things change, and in truth I was not unhappy. I did not go hungry, and sometimes I had time to play, and I had a horde of little treasures (prettily coloured rocks, and blown out eggs, and even a length of scarlet ribbon), some of which I found, and a few of which I was given. 

I had a stepmother, and enough to eat, and shelter from the rain. I had work to do, and a fire in winter, and the sun in summer. And I had a brother. He was worth all the coloured stones in the world, and all the scarlet ribbons. He was the winter fire, and the sun on the crops, and the cool water in the well. I would have given him my daily bread, and gone hungry, I would have done his tasks as well as my own, I would have slept in the stables, if it would have brought him comfort. Of course, it was not necessary to do any of these things, for he was not in truth my brother, but the son of my stepmother by her first husband, and he had the best of everything. 

He had the best of everything, and I was glad of it, for I loved him as a brother in place of the sister whose first words I never heard, and I loved him as the playmate my cousins might have been. I loved him for the casual gifts he brought me, the sort an uncle might give his favourite niece, and I loved him for the time he took to teach me, and to tell me stories, and to sing me to sleep. Perhaps, had things gone differently, I might have loved many people, my heart full and generous; perhaps I have a narrow heart, that only ever had room for one. Who now can say? But things did not go differently, and I had only him. 

I do not mean he was always there, for the best of everything meant schooling, and being sent to stay with relatives of his father so that he could learn town ways, and perhaps really I saw very little of him, just a handful of fragments: a careless song, a careless gift, an afternoon when he had nothing better to do than to entertain me. Perhaps. But he was kind to me.

There was a song he used to sing, an old song, that started _Goodbye my mother, goodbye my sister, goodbye to all my friends_. It was about a man who was sent far overseas, and saw many fine things, but none so fine as his own country, and his home, and the girl of his heart. In the song, the girl did not wait for him, but I was not the girl in the song.

Those were good times, when we were happy, and they lasted a long time, longer perhaps than happiness usually does. But the sky is not always blue, and childhood comes to an end. There was a war. I don’t know where, or who was fighting, or for what reason - it wasn’t anywhere near where we lived, or anything to do with us, but somewhere there was a king, who commanded his nobles, who commanded our lords, and so we must send men away to fight. In truth, I don’t think he minded leaving, for he had always wanted to see the world, and I didn’t mind as much as I might, for I trusted he would come back to me with new stories and new toys, and I had heard the song many times before: the traveller returns home, and is happy, and doesn’t want to leave again.

A year passed, and another, and another, and I had become used to waiting for him, and continued on with my life, working to please my stepmother, who could not be pleased, and finding pretty coloured pebbles at the river edge, and thinking of all the things I would have to tell my brother when he came home. I did not notice the time passing, or if I did, I thought it of no account, and did not notice that the fields and the river and the house stayed the same from year to year, but I did not. Even when the first men asked for me, it seemed a minor thing. I had reached the age I might be expected to marry, but of course I would not, because it was my place to live quietly at home and to wait. 

Tired of asking me, some of them asked my stepmother, but she said no, because where would she find someone else who worked for her as I did? Three servants, she used to say, could not take my place. And so things continued on as they had ever been (a little worse, perhaps, because every year there was less to buy and more to pay in taxes, and life was a little harder than the year before, but I had learnt early that life might sometimes get worse).

I did not know him when he came home. How could that be, I who had waited faithfully, before I understood what faithfulness was? But the fine captain, with his sword and his smart uniform, his easy swagger and the scar across his face: he was not the boy I had played with and looked up to, not the playmate I had made stand in for my mother and my sister and my father and my cousins. And so I did not know him, and when he flashed a smile at me, a smile like a wolf when it looks upon a sheep, I was abashed, and dropped my eyes, and would not speak to him. But he was always patient, and not to be put off when he had decided on something: once I remember he walked ten miles because he had promised to buy me a ribbon. I do not think he knew me either, for he had left me a child, but he was still patient with me, and not to be put off; he was still kind, too, although with his scar and his smile he no longer looked it, and I think my heart recognised him when my eyes did not. 

All the things I had planned to tell him, I told him, even before I realised who he was. And when we realised, well, what could have been easier? We would go home together, and he would tell his mother he was marrying me, and we would be happy.

I have said my stepmother was never pleased, and this in particular did not please her. She would have her son marry a better bride, and as for me, on of the suitors I had ignored had taken her hint, and offered her the money to pay not three but five servants, and she had agreed.

I said, of course, that I would not marry a man I did not want, and he said likewise he would take no other bride, but my stepmother pointed to the poverty of our farm - and it was poor now, impoverished step by gradual step, so I had barely noticed - and cried upon his duty to her, and her suffering, until he swore that he would buy me at the same price, and bring back wealth enough for his mother to live again in comfort.

I wish that he had left with her blessing. I wish that I had gone with him. I notice, now, how little seed there is to sow in spring, how meagre our stores in autumn. I notice how the years pass, and how they go from worse to worse. I notice, now, that he does not come back.


End file.
